New Delhi: A month before the US State Department releases its religious freedom rights rankings, a US human rights body has recommended that it should put India, Russia, Syria and Vietnam on its ‘red list’ or ‘countries of particular concern (CPC)’.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has frequently slammed the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the body which has made the recommendations. MEA spokespersons have said the USCIRF was biased and had a limited understanding of India and its Constitution. No US Secretary of State has acted on its recommendations as far as India is concerned.
Last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had declined the USCIRF’s recommendation to list India as a CPC. He had not even accepted USCIRF’s recommendation to put Uzbekistan on the list as the country is deemed strategically important for US foreign policy interests. India is of far greater value in its economic and military heft. Three of India’s neighbours — Pakistan, China and Myanmar—are on the department’s CPC list along with North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Nigeria.
Successive US Ambassadors for Religious Freedom have drawn a sharp distinction between India and Pakistan, though both are accused of state-sponsored violence on its citizens. “Some of the violence in India was carried out by the government but a lot of the actions are by the government in Pakistan… half of the world’s people who are locked up for apostasy or blasphemy are in Pakistan,” the US Ambassador for Religious Freedom Senator Sam Brownback had said last year when asked why Pakistan was on CPC and India wasn’t.
For the 2020 reporting period, the US body has also recommended the expansion of “yellow list” or the Special Watch List (SWL) to include countries such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Turkey and Uzbekistan.
MEA calls it bias
- USCIRF wants India, Russia, Syria & Vietnam on ‘red list’
- Pak, China and Myanmar among nations already on list
- Calling US body biased, MEA said it had limited understanding of India & its Constitution